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Thoughts on Small Press #3—How Did You Start?

19 January 2020

1. What was the itch you couldn’t scratch that made you start Swan River Press? 2. How did you start? Was it one book that turned into a line, or was it always a plan to be a full press? 3. Did you know what was involved before you started out; did you do lots of research first, or did you just dive in and learn as you go? Would you recommend this approach to others interested in starting? – Angie McKeown Hi Angie—Thank you for sending me your questions. In reading over them, it looks as though they can …

Thoughts on Small Press #1

8 December 2019

Over the recent weeks there has been a lot of talk about the small press, so much of it negative: its failings with regard to paying authors, unfair/ridiculous contracts and terms, and all around dodgy business practices. Small press publishing, done correctly and honestly, is never easy. This is not an excuse. It’s also true that substandard practices flourish in this arena, and unfortunate that all too often these shortcomings burst to the fore. The indictments, and the frustrations they beget, are not without merit. However, it is also lamentable when the small press—which has a lot to offer—undergoes so …

Thoughts on Small Press #6—Deluge of Submissions

13 April 2020

Earlier this year, our friends over at Tartarus Press announced a call for submissions for their forthcoming 30th anniversary anthology. (Wow! Thirty years!!) The submissions window ran from 10 January until 10 April—a clean three months. Editor Rosalie Parker said on Twitter the other day that in that time, she received over five hundred stories. Five. Hundred. Stories. Yikes! In a previous “Thoughts on Small Press #2—What to Publish?”, I briefly talk about submissions. I mention that I’m generally not open for submissions, fearing I would be unable to handle the deluge. Looking at what Rosalie Parker has to sift …

Thoughts on Small Press #2—What to Publish?

31 December 2019

Brian, here’s a question for the small press discussion; What recurring characteristics and factors do you find yourself weighing up when considering whether to publish a collection/ text? What leads up to that decisive moment? Cheers, Stephen J. Clark Hi Stephen—At first I thought your question might be a relatively easy one to answer, and on some levels it is: I tend to know what I want to publish, generally. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that there was quite a bit of unconscious thought and a few more overt goals that influence my decision-making. …

Thoughts on Small Press #5—Don’t Cut Corners

6 April 2020

My involvements with small presses have so far been only as a customer, and I’ve yet to have a really bad experience in dealing with any of them—just the occasional delay in shipment, usually for production reasons. Maybe I’ve been lucky, or I just have good taste in small presses. 🙂 The most annoying issue I’ve had with some small presses (not SRP) is poor proofreading and typography. I’ve seen books where the text was obviously scanned and OCR’d but never proofread at all, with errors on nearly every page, sometimes making it difficult to be sure what the author …

Thoughts on Small Press #4—Author and Artist Payments

14 February 2020

Occasionally on social media I see threads bemoaning the fact that authors and artists frequently are expected to work for free (and often do). There are similar threads concerning vanity publishing—publishers who charge authors to be published—as well as agents who charge up-front fees. All of this is summarily decided to be unfair with the consensus being that workers should be paid for their work. Here’s an example of the former issue, and a sample of the latter. A quick scan of these two threads will give you a pretty good idea of the complaints. Payment of authors was also …

Uncertainties 4

Timothy J. Jarvis (ed.)

Published: February 2020

“We live in Gothic times.” – Angela Carter The Gothic tale, disreputable as it is, can, more readily than the realist short story, provoke unease and jolt us from complacency. Uncertainties is an anthology series—featuring authors from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, and the Philippines—each exploring the concept of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed “strange tales” by Robert Aickman, called “tales of the unexpected” by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as “winter’s tales”. But these are no mere ghost stories. These tales of the uncanny grapple with existential epiphanies of …

Uncertainties 3

Lynda E. Rucker (ed.)

Published: September 2018

“A stone’s throw out on either hand / From that well-ordered road we tread” – Rudyard Kipling “What is happening all around us that is beyond the perception of our senses—and what happens when that perception changes?” – from the Introduction by Lynda E. Rucker Uncertainties is an anthology of new writing—featuring contributions from Irish, British, and American authors—each exploring the idea of increasingly fragmented senses of reality. These types of short stories were termed “strange tales” by Robert Aickman, called “tales of the unexpected” by Roald Dahl, and known to Shakespeare’s ill-fated Prince Mamillius as ‘winter’s tales’. But these …

The Green Book 19

“Probably there has never been in any country,” wrote John Eglinton in his Memoir of A.E. (1937), “a period of literary activity which has not been preceded or accompanied by some stimulation of the religious interest. Anyone in search of this in Ireland at this time may find it if he looks for it, though he certainly will not find it in either the Catholic or the various Protestant religious bodies: he will find it, unless he disdains to look in that direction, in the ferment caused in the minds of a group of young men by the early activities …

Uncertainties 4: A Chat with Timothy J. Jarvis

10 August 2020

Conducted by Lynda E. Rucker Timothy J. Jarvis is a writer and scholar with an interest in the antic, the weird, the strange. His first novel, The Wanderer, was published by Perfect Edge Books in 2014. His short fiction has appeared in The Flower Book, The Shadow Booth Volume 1, The Scarlet Soul, The Far Tower, Murder Ballads, and Uncertainties 1, among other places. He also writes criticism and reviews, and is co-editor of Faunus, the journal of the Friends of Arthur Machen. Lynda: E. Rucker: First, I want to say how much I enjoyed this volume of Uncertainties! …

Submissions

Submissions Guidelines Novels, Collections, and Anthologies Submissions for novels, collections, and anthologies are by invitation only. We unfortunately do not have the resources to accept unsolicited manuscripts at this time. You might find our blog series “Thoughts on Small Press” to be of interest. The Green Book Aimed at a general readership and published twice-yearly, The Green Book is Swan River Press’s house journal that features commentaries, articles, and occasionally reviews on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic literature. Anyone interested in taking an active role in our dialogue is invited to contact the editor to discuss proposals for articles. We …

Thoughts on Le Fanu’s “The Cock and Anchor” by Peter McClean

31 May 2015

I did not know what to expect when I started reading this novel, but what I found delighted and intrigued me. It proved to be one of those books that I did not like to put down and found myself making time to return to.

Our Haunted Year 2022

28 December 2022

Art: Brian Coldrick From an outside perspective, Swan River Press has probably looked very quiet this year, reduced to a trickle. Though we didn’t publish as much within these last twelve months as I had planned, the year was still a significant one behind the scenes, hopefully positioning us for a more (outwardly) eventful 2023. In fact, I’d been lamenting how few new titles we had published this year, which is probably why stepping back to take stock in this annual post remains a useful exercise. Because we did accomplish more than I’d initially considered. So with the year now …

Things Less Certain: An Interview with Lynda E. Rucker

27 November 2018

© Brian J. Showers, August 2018 Lynda E. Rucker has sold more than three dozen short stories to various magazines and anthologies, won the 2015 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Short Story, and is a regular columnist for UK horror magazine Black Static. Her first collection, The Moon Will Look Strange, was released in 2013 from Karoshi Books; and her second, You’ll Know When You Get There, was published by Swan River Press in 2016. Brian J. Showers: This is the first anthology you’ve edited, isn’t it? Given that there are already two instalments in the Uncertainties series, what were …